


You're the Strings to My Guitar

by kakaiescheck



Series: Juke / JATP [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Luke teaches Julie how to play guitar, Ray really wants to meet Luke and the guys in that order, Reggie plays the piano too, also slightly steamy, as per usual, girl's got it bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29499264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakaiescheck/pseuds/kakaiescheck
Summary: Luke’s hand moved her finger on the third string from the fifth fret to the fourth. “This is the only tricky one.”Frowning, she went over it in her head. To be honest, after two strings, she had noticed the pattern of tuning to the fifth fret. Now she thought it through (G#, A, Bb, B…) and yeah, this one just had to be on the fourth fret. Just to trip her out.“Why?” she whined.Luke laughed at her. “It’s just what it is.”“It’s non-intuitive.”“Yeah, yeah, just tune it. The last one’s on the fifth again, don’t worry.”//Julie has a complicated relationship with guitars, but maybe Luke's the one who can finally teach it to her. He doesn't get touchy-feely at all. Nope. With a side dish of Reggie playing piano, Ray really wanting to meet Luke, and feels.
Relationships: Julie Molina & Ray Molina, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: Juke / JATP [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166840
Comments: 21
Kudos: 146
Collections: Random_booklovers favourite Juke fics





	You're the Strings to My Guitar

**Author's Note:**

> What, me having had three people try to teach me guitar and all three people fail? Me, being salty about it and complaining that my fingers hurt and the chords don't make sense? More likely than you think. Here's me projecting and wishing I had a ghost almost-boyfriend to push me through it (since an alive boyfriend didn't work).
> 
> Title from my own song??? From [my other Juke fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142870), if you wanna check it out!

The last chord rang out of Luke's guitar until it faded away. For the past half hour, they had been stuck on the same song because Luke couldn't decide what distortion to use. He had finally worked up the courage to ask if he could try out and add some of Rose's pedals to his board – to which Julie had smiled and said that her mom would have liked that –, and now he pretty much didn't know what to do with all the new options. It was like a child on Christmas with too many presents to open.

Thankfully, Julie knew what the smile he was giving her meant: this was it, this was the sound he wanted for this song.

"Oh, thank God," Alex exclaimed, clearly having picked up on the smile was well. "I swear, when you get into one of your indecisive moods…"

Reggie shrugged off his bass. "It wasn't so bad. Remember when we were recording the demo, though?"

"Don't remind me."

"Hey!" Luke called.

"Hours in the studio cost _money_ , Luke."

"Yeah, well, you complain now–"

"I complained then too."

"– but we _rocked_ that demo. It was totally worth it."

Julie watched with a soft smile as they kept bickering. _Her boys_ , she thought fondly. Those were _her boys_ and she loved them and adored them. Their playful banter was almost music to her ears as she turned off her keyboard and started stacking the sheet music away. It was clear that practice was over – they had been too focused on one thing for too long and now could all use a break.

"Hey, Julie?"

"Hm?"

Reggie was in front of her, the other two still bickering in the background. He offered her a nervous smile. "Do you still have those books with the practicing exercises? For piano?"

At that, she smiled even brighter. It hadn't escaped her notice that Reggie had taken over the keyboard part on the bridge that first time they'd performed Bright. Well, it _had_ , at first, but after she had thought back on it, she'd clearly remembered him playing it. It wasn't something that either of the boys mentioned later, and she didn't bring it up. Too much was going on. Until she had come home one day and caught him playing a simple version of a Christmas song on the grand piano. After many unnecessary apologies on his part and many words of reassurance on hers…

" _My grandpa had one," Reggie said. "He showed me a few things before he passed, but nobody else played in the family, so…" he shrugged, staring at the floor. "Didn't really fit the sound we had back then either, so neither of us picked it up. I mean, Bobby had a small keyboard that he got frustrated with, and Luke only pulled it out when he couldn't get the melodies right. They didn't want to drop the guitars for it."_

" _Sounds like them."_

" _Yeah. But everything we've learned was from trying out the keys. Luke can read and write sheet music, but that's just because he's…" he made a few gestures._

_Julie smiled. "An overachiever?"_

_She was relieved when Reggie's nervous frown melted into a smile as well. "That's one way of putting it. None of us is nowhere_ near _as good as you, though. It seems so easy when you do it."_

 _She caught a hint of longing in his voice and face. "It wasn't all natural talent, I'll tell you that. As soon as I told my mom that I really,_ really _wanted to learn it, she pulled out the practicing books." Julie shuddered with the memory._

Their conversation hadn't lasted long after that, because Alex and Luke had come in as silently as two wrecking balls, ready to rehearse. Julie had had the feeling that it wouldn't be the end of it, though, so she had searched through the many piano books they had until she'd found the exercises that had made her hands scream in agony when she was ten.

Now, she was more than happy to hand them to Reggie, starting with the one on sheet music theory, so he could actually understand the exercises. His grin was radiant, much like Luke's an hour before, plugging in the new pedals. Honestly, _her boys_.

With a tight hug, Reggie grabbed the material and took off toward the grand piano. Julie laughed at his enthusiasm. "Want any help with all that?"

He paused in the middle of lifting the lid. Then he gave her a shy smile. "I'll call you if I need any?"

Recognizing the need to try something on his own, Julie reassured him that she was available for whatever questions he had and left him to it.

("Just remember to press down the–" "The damper pedal. Got it.")

Julie took a look around, Luke's and Alex's voices now absent as they had run out of things to roast each other over for the moment. Her eyes trailed to a place where they had been bending to more often lately: her mom's acoustic guitar on the wall behind the couch.

The distinct sound of one of them poofing out caught her attention, and she turned to notice it had been Alex. She then watched as Luke sat down in front of his pedal board and started fiddling with it. A sudden urge came over her to sit beside him and ask him to explain each one, which ones he liked the most, what he thought of his mom's. If Reggie claimed her piano-playing looked like second nature to her – well, Luke's familiarity with his guitar and all its intricate add-ons could only be _first_ nature.

In all truthfulness, she tended to admire anyone who played an instrument that she didn't and, considering she only played the piano/keyboard well enough to announce herself as being able to play it, it was a lot of people. She was in the music program, for heaven's sake. People played all sorts of instruments there. _She_ had tried many instruments as well. It shouldn't impress her so much anymore, but it still very much did.

Julie knew why, in parts. As a kid, she had become so fixated on the beautiful piano, so focused on perfecting it, that she had neglected other instruments. Not for lack of trying on her mom's part, but there was only so much Rose could try before becoming pushy. Then, at school, she had been forced to get a basic grip on other instruments – acoustic guitar, percussion, flute. She never got around to the _good_ part, though, when you knew enough about it to start enjoying playing it, so she got frustrated and then mad at herself for not letting her mom teach her as she grew up.

Then her mom had gotten sick and now she couldn't teach her anymore.

It wasn't like she couldn't learn at school. In fact, it was encouraged. However, she had a feeling she would just get frustrated again. Piano was so easy for her; she didn't want to struggle over a six-string again because the chords made a lot less sense. She would catch herself every rehearsal watching as Luke's fingers moved over the strings with such ease, even when he was figuring out a complicated solo – how long had _he_ been playing for it to look so natural?

The repetitive sound of Reggie going over the scales exercise filled the room. With one last glance at Luke rearranging his pedals, Julie made a decision. She grabbed her mom's guitar from the wall and walked over to him, stopping right in front of his line of vision. He looked up curiously.

"Okay if I take you away from your babies for a while?"

It seemed like he was going to pretend to be offended, but then his eyes fell on the guitar at her side and his mouth fell open a little. "Uh…"

Julie breathed in, gathering up her courage. "Reggie's motivation inspired me, so… Would you teach me?"

She thought he had frozen in place, until the corners of his lips curled up, his eyes shinier. "Really?"

In lieu of answering, Julie nervously bit her lip and nodded, gaze traveling to the ground for a moment before being pulled back to his. "If it's okay."

Luke jumped to his feet, causing her to take a step back in alarm. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, his never-ending energy coming out in waves. "Of _course_ it's okay. I… Like, now? Now's fine. Or any time."

"Now's fine," she echoed.

They hesitated, not sure of what to do next. Then Reggie cursed under his breath, apparently struggling with the positioning of his fingers, getting both of their attentions. When Julie looked back at Luke, he had just turned back to her as well, and he nodded towards the door. "Should probably go somewhere else, though."

Julie nodded. The only place she could think of where they would have the privacy for this was her room, so that's where they headed to (after Luke grabbed a few picks). Immediately upon closing the door, Luke ran and threw himself on her bed, making one decorative pillow fall. She rolled her eyes and followed at a more normal pace, kicking off her shoes and sitting cross-legged next to him, guitar on her lap.

As soon as she stroked the cords once to try them out, a chaotic sound came out, making them both wince.

"Ouch, so _that's_ out of tune," Luke said.

"Yeah. Hasn't been played in years, so it makes sense." Julie didn't let herself dwell on exactly how long, instead going for the first string to tune it, when she realized… "Crap, I forgot the tuner down at the garage. Could you poof back there and grab it?"

Luke gave her an adorably confused face. "Tuner?"

"It's this little clip-on thing with a screen that picks up the vibrations from the guitar and shows you the note it's playing or if it's out of tune. It's probably in the case up in the loft."

His face turned to almost offended. "A _tuner_? C'mon, Julie. What happened to you kids these days, with all this 21st century technology? Gimme that," he sat up and stretched out his hand for the instrument.

"Oh, my God, can you try not to sound like you're actually from the seventies?"

Luke took it from her anyway, expertly laying it across his lap, one hand grabbing the neck while his other arm draped over it. So natural. So easy.

He made a face again when the incredibly-out-of-tune sixth string was played, fingers moving to the turning keys to tighten it. "First lesson, then. You don't need a tuner; your ear's more than good enough," he glanced at her before focusing back on the task. "This was your mom's, right?"

Julie nodded, watching him tune it much faster than she could with the tuner. "Yeah. She played it really well. She tried to teach me, and I learned a bit in school, too, but…" She sighed, which prompted him to glance at her again. "Okay, I should probably warn you. A lot of people have tried to teach me how to play guitar, with varying degrees of success."

Now he stopped tuning and fully looked at her, a smirk growing on his lips. "Is that a challenge?"

Of course, only _he_ would see it as a challenge instead of a bad omen. "I mean it! I just think – you know, piano makes much more sense. It's linear, the chords make sense… I don't know who the hell decided that a guitar should work like _that_ , because it's just not intuitive, okay? Not intuitive at all."

Julie was going to keep on going. Her rant wasn't over; in fact, she could go on for days about how non-intuitive guitars were and why they were made like that. But her breath got caught in her throat at the pure, amused expression Luke's smirk had turned into as she talked. His eyebrows were raised, but the rest of his face was just… soft.

(She knew that look. She just pretended she didn't and, no, she didn't know when she was going to stop pretending. Thank you.)

Julie felt a blush threatening to color her cheeks, but managed to say, "I just get frustrated, okay?"

Luke chuckled, perfect smile still in place, hypnotizing her. "Yeah. I got that. It does make sense, though. You play the same notes as the piano, just over the different strings."

"Why are there different strings at all?"

He rolled his eyes. "Alright. You know which one this one is?" He struck the top string (which was called the _sixth_ string and was also the lowest note – see her problem here?), now completely in tune.

Already having to fight the frustration creeping into her bones, Julie said, "E. I know how it goes. It's E-A-D-G-B-E, over two octaves."

"Well, then you've got half the work cut out for you," Luke looked back down to continue his job. "D'you know how to tune without your fancy tuner?"

She ignored the jab, pretending not to see how his soft smile had turned back to a smirk, and tried to remember the way her mom had showed her, many, many years ago. "Something about playing the same note on two strings and tuning them to each other?"

Luke nodded. "Yep. See, you _do_ know some things, it's not completely helpless. _You're_ tuning the guitar," he turned it around and put it on her lap.

A bit shocked from the sudden movement, Julie took a second to get her bearings. Slowly, she brought her right arm around it and held the neck with her left hand. She remembered that it all started with the premise that the sixth string (the highest on the guitar, but the lowest in range) was tuned, which it was now. It was an E. The one under it was an A. So she had to find the A on the E string.

Carefully, and very much ignoring the burning eyes on her, she moved one finger over the frets of the sixth string, counting in her head – F, F#, G, G#, A. A! She wasn't one hundred percent sure, but she pressed down on the fifth fret of the sixth string and played, followed quickly by an open fifth string. They sounded exactly the same. Her winning grin met Luke's.

"Yes! See, you can totally do this, Jules. But first," he reached out and messed with the turning keys of three strings.

"Wha– Hey!"

"I already did four, but I want _you_ to tune them. I left you the sixth string, though."

Julie wasn't so sure about his teaching methods, but maybe that was what she needed – someone who wouldn't baby her. So, _slowly_ , she went over the strings, tuning the fifth to the sixth, then the fourth to the fifth, then the third to the fourth, then…

Luke's hand moved her finger on the third string from the fifth fret to the fourth. "This is the only tricky one."

Frowning, she went over it in her head. To be honest, after two strings, she had noticed the pattern of tuning to the fifth fret. Now she thought it through (G#, A, Bb, B…) and yeah, this one just _had_ to be on the fourth fret. Just to trip her out.

" _Why_?" she whined.

Luke laughed at her. "It's just what it is."

"It's _non-intuitive_."

"Yeah, yeah, just tune it. The last one's on the fifth again, don't worry."

She did so, but not without huffing a few times to show her discontent. Also, by the time she was finished, her finger was crying real agony tears from pressing down on the strings. To test it out, she played the six strings open and it sounded…

"Perfect," Luke smiled.

It was an automatic response to smile back. Then she had to avoid his intense gaze. "I've always wondered what chord this was, you know? Just playing everything open like this."

Luke scrunched up his nose. "Not any chord that matters, to be honest. Depends on what you're playing – the key and such. It's not important. What _is_ important is knowing how to play the basic chords. Did you ever get around to that?" he held up a pick for her.

 _Yeah, that's usually the part where I gave up_ , she thought, taking the pick carefully. Instead of saying it out loud, she focused on her left fingers, adjusting her hand so she could reach better. The only chord she remembered with enough certainty to attempt to play was A. It was also the simplest one in her opinion: press down the fourth, third and second strings on the second fret.

It didn't exactly sound like an A when she played it.

Luke's hand shot up to hers holding the pick to adjust it. "You don't play the sixth for this one. Go again."

She did, and it sounded only 10% better.

"Dude, you gotta press down like you mean it," he reached for her other hand now, fingers coming on top of hers and pressing against the strings like she should be doing.

" _Ow_!"

"Try it now."

Reluctant and still in pain, Julie ran the pick over the strings ( _except_ the sixth one) and… it actually did sound like an A.

At what _cost_ , though? As soon as Luke released her fingers, she pulled them to her and checked the damage – there were deep lines on each of her three participating fingertips. She groaned. "Just remembered another reason why I gave up. I don't need to grow another layer of skin to play piano! This is sadistic."

"You're being dramatic."

Julie gave him a look and, on a whim, grabbed his left hand, lifting it to their eye level. She pointed to the deep callouses on all his fingers. "Am I? Can you even feel anything with your fingertips anymore?"

Luke rolled his eyes in an exaggerated manner, turning his hand on hers so they were palm to palm. "Of _course_ I still– You're really traumatized, aren't you? Who scarred you?"

She found it hard to pay much attention to what he was saying, because he slipped his fingers between hers and held her hand properly, dropping them to the side. The discussed callouses were over her knuckles now.

She must have been quiet for too long, because Luke's eyes moved to their intertwined hands and he tensed up, as if he hadn't noticed he'd done it. He didn't pull away immediately, though. "W-what I mean is that it's never gonna stop hurting if you keep quitting. It doesn't take long, really."

"Any longer than _right now_ is too long for me."

"You're being way too dramatic about this," he used their hands to point at her before finally letting go, and she told herself she didn't miss his touch. "It's just a little pain for a while, and then you get to play a whole different instrument. You're already amazing just with the piano, but if you learn guitar? You'll be unstoppable!"

Julie looked down so her hair would fall over her warming cheeks. "Now who's dramatic?"

He gave her an incredulous look. Then he shook his head and said, "Alright, what other chords d'you know?"

She tried to show him, but he had to press down on her fingers every time for any sound to come out. And A was really the only one she remembered correctly. He had to correct her placement and walk her through the other basic chords, and by the time they reached B, her hand couldn't take it anymore.

Another whine might have come out of her mouth as she blew softly on her abused fingertips. "It huuuurts, and it doesn't make any sense!"

"It does. You just have to memorize the basics, then it gets really easy."

"How am I supposed to memorize them when I can't play for longer than five minutes?"

Even as she said it, she could think of at least three ways to commit the chords to memory without having to play them. It was a matter of honor by then, though. She had spent too many years of her life complaining about guitars to just give in now. As far as she was concerned, the instrument would have to work a little harder and meet her halfway.

Suddenly, Luke jumped on his spot. "Alright. You're being whiny, but you challenged me to teach you–"

"I did not challenge you–"

"– so you leave me no choice. You _are_ memorizing at least three more chords today, boss, and if you can't use your fingers because it 'hurts', then you'll use mine."

Julie had opened her mouth, ready to scold him for the air quotes and tell him that it really did hurt, but then he finished the sentence. "What do you mean?"

Still fueled by motivation, Luke moved a few pillows from the bed so he could rest against them while still sitting up. Then he kept one of his legs folded and stretched out the other slightly to the side, arms opening in invitation. Confused, Julie began to hand him the guitar, but he shook his head and rolled his eyes for what must have been the tenth time during the lesson and raised a finger, making a circle in the air with it. Her jaw dropped open when she caught his meaning. He wanted her to turn around and… but he had to be kidding. Did he really mean…?

The hands grabbing her waist were answer enough, and soon she had been turned and pulled to rest her back on his chest. His right hand lingered on her waist while his left one wormed its way under hers on the guitar's neck.

"You're using my fingers," Luke repeated, aligning each digit, "so you can play the chords. We'll work on getting you your own callouses with time. Play a C."

Julie didn't know how he expected her to remember when he was that close to her, his voice having dropped to a low tone both in volume and pitch. She ignored the goosebumps in her neck and swallowed. Tentatively, she moved his fingers under hers to place them, pressing down when she thought she had it right. Then she strummed.

It sounded off, and she didn't know why. It wasn't lack of force, because Luke was holding the string correctly, and she had remembered not to play the sixth string. No fingers were brushing on strings that they shouldn't be. It could only be the placement, but she didn't know what was wrong.

To answer her silent question, Luke's ring finger bumped hers a little to the side so they slid to the next fret. Her hand ached with the unfamiliar stretch, but the chord sounded right when she tried again.

"Now D," he muttered.

And so they went. The goosebumps and the feeling of her heart in her throat didn't go away, especially when his right hand left her waist to remind her which strings to play for each chord – since he was leaned to the left to be able to see their fingers on the neck of the guitar, he had to stretch his right arm almost over her shoulder to reach the pick and guide her.

It was in one of those moments that she heard steps down the hall and a knock on her door. " _Mija_?"

Her heart jumped to her throat again and she tensed up, watching the door open. Then she remembered her dad couldn't see the ghost draped all over her and her shoulders relaxed a bit. "Hey, dad."

He smiled radiantly when he saw the guitar in her lap. "Hey, that's new."

Bashful, Julie bit back a grin and looked down. Luke's right arm slowly withdrew from around hers and his palm rested against her waist again (and she honestly didn't know which was worse). His left fingers relaxed, letting hers slip in between them against the strings. "Yeah. I'm trying again."

"That's amazing, Julie. Think this time it's gonna stick?" her dad mocked lightly. "I know you and guitars have a love-hate relationship."

She rolled her eyes. "That's not... I wouldn't call it _hate_."

"I've seen you complain about how it hurts your fingers more times than I heard your mom tune it."

"That's a little dramatic, dad."

" _Is_ it?" Luke asked, incredulous.

Julie casually elbowed his stomach, pretending to rearrange herself. "It's gonna stick this time. I think I'm finally getting the chords down. All I need is new fingers."

Her dad laughed and stepped inside, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress. "Well, can I hear? Maybe one of your band's songs?"

She froze, her first automatic response being no, she didn't have any of their songs down yet. Hell, she hardly had four chords down. But then Luke rearranged his left hand, fingers slipping over hers on the neck of the guitar, and he said, "Finally Free's got the easiest ones. You got this."

She did _not_ have it. She knew the chords were A-E-F#m-D, and she only sort of knew three of those.

"I'll play the F sus minor, don't worry." It was like he'd read her mind. "It'll hurt a little, though, but I know you can power through it."

Something about the way he did his pep-talks got to her – had since the beginning. That unwavering confidence that she would rock it, no matter how nervous she was. It worked when she had to play in front of her school for the first time in a year and it worked now when it was only her dad.

With a deep breath, she positioned her fingers to play the A. She couldn't use his fingers as padding this time, but he was ready to help her with the strength she didn't have yet to press down on the strings, even if she knew it was going to hurt.

"Grip it tighter with your whole hand," Luke instructed, "You gotta have something to put pressure on."

So Julie did. His thumb ran over hers once and it was the last push she needed.

Slowly, she played the A. " _Hearts on fire_." Then the E. " _We're no_ …" Then she panicked for a second, holding the note until Luke moved her fingers to make an F#m, "… _liars / So we_ ," D, " _say what we wanna say_ _/ I'm awakened / No more faking / So we push all our fears away_."

She stopped there because her fingers were hurting. Luke wasn't joking when he said that the F#m would hurt – honestly, what kind of chord was that? But it was enough for her dad, who smiled proudly and clapped at her little rendition. She could also feel Luke's grin, his cheek almost touching her hair, and his left hand squeezed hers excitedly, "Yes!"

"That sounded really good, _mija_! Have you been practicing long? Did you get a tutor at school?"

At that, Julie felt her cheeks going up in flames and chuckled nervously. "No, no! I've just picked it up again, really. These are the easy chords."

She hesitated then. She still didn't know when the right time to tell her dad about the boys would be, or if she should tell him at all. Carlos had figured it out, and Flynn also knew. Julie tried to keep the lying to her dad to a minimum, telling half-truths and being vague, but if she was going to pretend they were a band from Sweden who had connected with her so deeply, then it would be weird to never mention them at all. She could do half-truths.

"Actually," Julie fiddled with the guitar pick, looking down at it and fighting the blush, "Luke's been helping me."

As expected, she felt the boy tense up behind her. Her dad, on the other hand, did a decent job at trying to school his expressions into simple curiosity. "Really? That's nice of him. You guys talk on Skype or…?"

"Yeah. I showed him some of mom's stuff and he was really excited. Made me wanna try again. Her guitar looked a little lonely out there," she shrugged, going for nonchalant but probably not delivering it.

At that, her dad's face turned from hiding the teasing to genuinely soft. "I'm glad you found someone to share those things with, _mija_. And it sounds like he has good taste; I think mom would've liked him. Now, I can't be one hundred percent sure, since you won't let me meet him–"

"Dad."

"I promise I won't even stay long! Just a quick hello from the back of the screen–"

" _Dad_!"

"– to thank him for bringing music back to you. For, you know," he made a few gestures, "getting you back into songwriting again."

His face turned more serious and reminiscent, and Julie knew what was coming. As subtly as she could, she took Luke's hand, dropping both of theirs from the neck of the guitar, and hid them behind its body so she could hold onto him. He squeezed back.

"Julie, one of my favorite memories of mom was the two of you out in the studio, playing, laughing, and coming up with these beautiful songs. And she always talked about how songwriting could be so intimate, you know? So I never wanted to impose on that. It was this… magical thing you two had together. And I'm just… What I mean is that I can't _imagine_ how hard it must've been to open yourself up to someone else other than her for this, and I'm really proud of you."

Julie could feel a few tears prickling the backs of her eyes and squeezed Luke's hand again. She wasn't sure why she hadn't asked him to leave yet or cut the conversation short before it could dive into this territory. Some time ago, she would have hissed _boundaries_ and made Luke disappear. Now, she felt like he needed to hear this, because it wasn't something she had the guts to tell him herself.

She shrugged. "I don't know. It wasn't hard, actually." _There was this instant connection, I can't explain it._ "We just… work in complementary ways, I guess."

Her dad gave her another gentle smile. "You do make great music together. They're all stuck in my head."

Julie giggled, her cheeks now definitely warm. "Thanks. I'll tell him that."

"I wish you'd let _me_ tell him. I wish you'd let me tell all of them how talented they are and how much I owe them for being here for you in ways I can't. _But_ ," he raised his hands in self-defense at her eye-roll, "I don't wanna push you. Whenever you're ready for me to meet them, I'm here. Just know that I'd really, _really_ like to meet them. Especially Luke," he gave her a pointed look.

Julie barely had time to feel embarrassed by that, because then Luke said close to her ear, "Tell him I'd really like to meet him, too."

She wasn't sure if she should, because then they would definitely have to work some way for him to appear on a FaceTime call – or she would have to tell the truth. But she couldn't deny Luke this, either. "I'm sure he'd love to meet you, too, dad. We'll see."

Satisfied with that answer, her dad patted her knee (unknowingly almost touching Luke's as well) and got up. "Well, I came here to tell you that your _tía_ 's coming over for dinner and she wants your help, so whatever homework you may have," he gave the guitar a pointed look, "you should probably get to it before she gets here."

"Got it."

He left, closing the door behind him.

Suddenly, it was all a bit much – Luke's hand in hers, his other one touching her waist, his chest so close to her back, his cheek brushing her hair. His fingers carefully traced hers, trembling a little. "Your dad's awesome," he said in a small voice.

She took a better hold of his hand to stop the shaking. "He's the best."

"I don't like lying to him."

"Me neither."

There were a few beats of silence before Luke broke it again. "Do you really think he'd send you back to the shrink if you told him about us? The way we did with Flynn?"

Julie sighed heavily, using her free hand to rest the guitar on the bed in front of her. "Dr. Turner wasn't bad. Therapy's just… a lot, and I have a lot going on. I think…" she trailed off, not sure what to think.

The silence stretched again. She could feel Luke's hesitation, as well as her own, making the air thick. Julie turned a bit so she could see his face, and it was… close. Not as close as when they shared a mic because he had leaned back a little, but definitely too close for two friends having a conversation. For some reason, though, it wasn't awkward.

"I'm thinking about it," Julie said, her voice just above a whisper.

Luke's eyes – still a mystery to her, since they seemed to switch colors whenever they pleased –, ranked over her face. They were grayish green today. "Look, I know I agreed with you on this at first, but he's… I really think it'd be okay. I mean, the way he talks about us makes me feel horrible lying to him. I know we're ghosts, and this is all crazy, but if there's one person who'd understand, I think it'd be him."

"It _would_ be nice to interact with you guys at home without looking like a crazy person," she agreed. "He'd probably make me leave the door open, though."

She just said it without thinking. Literally, without stopping to ponder over it for a millisecond, because if she had stopped for a millisecond, she would have realized the implications and kept her mouth firmly shut.

Instead, she firmly shut her eyes. "I _mean_ – It's just – It's not like – I just –" She gave up.

His hand felt like it was burning a hole on the slip of exposed skin on her back. She thought maybe she should pull her hand from his, but then it would call attention to the fact that they were _holding hands_ in the first place, so maybe she just shouldn't move and wait for the ground to swallow her.

"Well, in _that_ case, maybe we should reconsider it, then."

Luke's voice wasn't as confident as he'd probably been aiming for, but it had enough humor to make her open her eyes again. Big mistake, she realized, when she met his and saw a glimmer of… hope? Suggestion? Nerves? And a half smile?

Too nervous to get into it now, Julie giggled almost hysterically and broke their gaze. "I, um… I actually do… have homework. I was gonna do it before dinner…"

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, sure."

"But since my _tía_ 's coming…"

"Yeah, no, it's fine."

"Yeah."

There was a moment of hesitation, then Luke pulled away and got up. She couldn't pretend not to miss his touch this time.

He grabbed the guitar from the bed. "Want me to take this back?"

"Thanks."

Another hesitation. He bit his lip before it curled into his signature confident smile. "Same time tomorrow, boss?"

Julie wanted to whine and just _barely_ stopped herself. "Ugh, can't my fingers rest a bit?"

"They will. Until tomorrow."

"They still hurt."

"Alright, do you want the callouses to be able to play or not?" he rolled his eyes and, when she didn't answer, added, "Thought so."

With one last wink, he was gone.

Julie's finger did still hurt, especially when she held her notebooks and laptop and dove into the work she needed to get done before her _tía_ showed up. All in all, though, as much as she had given up the many times she had attempted to pick up guitar before, she thought this time she would actually get through it and get to the good part. She had a particularly motivated (cute) ghost to push her along.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I will most certainly write about Julie telling Ray the truth and him meeting Luke. Don't fret (pun intended for the fic. He).


End file.
